© Tim Aubry / Greenpeace
The Fight
Across the Permian Basin and the Gulf Coast, communities are resisting one of the most aggressive fossil fuel expansions in history — the liquefied natural gas (LNG) boom. The oil, gas, and petrochemical industries have turned these regions into sacrifice zones — poisoning the air, contaminating the water, and endangering public health, ecosystems, and wildlife for corporate profit. From fracking fields in West Texas to LNG export terminals and petrochemical complexes along the Gulf Coast, this reckless expansion fuels both local devastation and global climate chaos.
The Gulf Coast is the epicenter of the LNG export boom in the United States, with new operating and proposed terminals popping up all along the coast, from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande. This rapid buildout will increase the risks of cancer, respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular illness in frontline communities. Pollution from current LNG operations alone is estimated to cause 60 premature deaths a year. If the full LNG build-out is allowed to happen, it could lead to over 4,000 premature deaths by 2050.
Meanwhile, the Permian Basin, the highest-producing oil field in the U.S., has become one of the world’s largest carbon bombs, fueling LNG exports and driving up emissions that could push the planet past critical climate tipping points. If this expansion continues unchecked, the consequences will be both catastrophic and irreversible.
Despite these threats, frontline communities in the Gulf South are fighting back. Local leaders, Indigenous nations, and environmental justice advocates are exposing corporate greed, holding polluters accountable, and demanding a just transition away from fossil fuels. GASLIT brings these struggles to the forefront, documenting the fight against oil, gas, and petrochemical giants. From shrimpers battling plastic pollution to families living in the shadows of petrochemical plants, GASLIT amplifies the voices of those on the frontlines, showcasing their strength, resilience, and unwavering determination.
This fight is bigger than Texas and Louisiana — it’s about the survival of global communities, the health of our planet, and the future we leave for generations to come.
© Tim Aubry / Greenpeace
Liquefied
Natural Gas
(LNG)
Liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) is methane gas which has been liquefied so it can be loaded onto tankers and shipped around the world. In the U.S. most methane gas is sourced from fracking. Since 2023, the United States has been the world’s largest exporter of LNG. The oil and gas industry, hungry to profit from markets abroad, has embarked on a rapid buildout of LNG export infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, along with a boom in methane gas production in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico.
Each phase of the LNG life cycle is associated with air and water pollution that puts the health of nearby communities at risk. Pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are generated from gas wells; from flaring; from the compressor stations that move the gas through the pipelines; from the liquefaction process; from the tankers that ship LNG abroad; and from combustion when it reaches its destination.
The result is truly detrimental to the health of frontline communities living near LNG infrastructure, as well as a growing contribution to the rapidly worsening global climate crisis. GASLIT examines how the LNG industry continues to invade Permian and Gulf Coast communities in the name of profits, placing the people who call these regions their home at grave risk.
© Aaron M. Sprecher / Greenpeace
Petro-chemicals
& Plastics
Plastic is no longer just an ocean pollution problem. Plastic is dangerous throughout its entire lifecycle — hurting people who live on the frontlines of refineries, next to incinerators, or in highly polluted regions that are on the receiving end of exported plastic waste. Shockingly, 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels and Louisiana’s Cancer Alley unfortunately has more than 200 petrochemical plants or refineries. Communities near these facilities face severe health risks, including cancer and asthma, linked to the intensifying production of plastics. While communities living on the frontlines bear the brunt of the health harms caused by plastics, we are all being impacted by this crisis. Microplastics — tiny fragments of plastic — have been found nearly everywhere, including in human bodies.
The same fossil fuel companies that have destroyed our climate are now expanding production of single-use plastics, with plastic production set to triple by 2060. Plastic recycling is inefficient and not a real solution to this problem — we simply need to stop making so much plastic.
GASLIT examines the stories of how plastics and petrochemicals have impacted Gulf Coast communities, from one brave shrimper who made it her personal mission to hold Formosa Plastics accountable for plastic pellet pollution in her beloved waterways to the Texas community living in the shadows of plastics and petrochemical production plagued by high rates of industrial pollution linked cancer.
